If we're a nation of laws, confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

If 1986 is any indication, Jeff Sessions won't have an easy confirmation hearing. For Democrats, taking down Donald Trump's first Senate ally would be a major win in an otherwise bleak political environment for liberals. The muckrakers will come out in force. Sessions will be called every name under the sun, opponents will dig up every misstep from his past, and then he'll be confirmed--if the rule of law still matters.

Most people don't know what the "rule of law" means. It's more than a catchy political talking point. John Adams famously noted that a republic is "a government of laws, and not of men." Through our elected officials, we agree on the laws that define the contours of our society. Where those laws are duly enacted, no man is above their reach or immune from their enforcement.

That theme has been a hallmark of Jeff Sessions's professional career, but it hasn't been a reality over the past eight years.

For the Obama Administration, law enforcement has been a matter of political ideology. The Department of Justice (DOJ) embraced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program because they didn't like immigration law. It refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because the President's perspectives evolved. Most recently, the Attorney General declined to defend part of a Veteran's Affairs reform law that expedited the firing of VA employees embroiled in scandal. Those are just the obvious examples where the Obama DOJ determined that the law wasn't really the law.

Even if we ignore the DOJ's selective enforcement, the campaign alone has left the agency with a black eye. Whether it's the FBI's pronouncements regarding Hillary Clinton's emails or the Attorney General herself meeting with Bill Clinton on a private plane, justice seems anything but blind.

I'll be the first to admit that I couldn't understand how a man of Jeff Sessions's character could support Donald Trump. So much of Trump's campaign rhetoric seemed inconsistent with what I learned as a young attorney working for Sessions.

There's only one explanation that makes sense: Senator Sessions observed the deterioration of the rule of law and perceived this election as the last chance to stop it. It's that simple. From federal judges to the justice department, Democrats carried President Obama's ideological legacy; Sessions saw Trump as a real path to an alternative.

Trump's immigration policies seemed more credible with Jeff Sessions behind them. In an election where the future makeup of the Supreme Court turned out so many votes, Sessions's advice was critical. While it's possible that Donald Trump took a crash course on effective conservative jurists, it's more likely that Jeff Sessions put together the names on Trump's Supreme Court short-list.

In truth, Donald Trump needed Sessions's credibility far more than the Senator ever needed him. If Trump failed to secure the nomination or win the general election, Sessions would continue in the Senate. On the other hand, a Trump victory meant Sessions would have a tremendous influence on the next administration.

Now Sessions is Trump's nominee for Attorney General.

Unlike recent Attorneys General, Sessions will force Congress to confront the laws it enacts. No longer would the administration make policy adjustments through selective enforcement. The days of sue and settle with executive branch agencies would likely be numbered as well. Break the law under Sessions, and face the consequences. Period.

Frankly, that's how it should be.

If you're concerned that Attorney General Sessions might enforce the written text of immigration laws--or any other laws for that matter--then take that concern to Congress and the President. That's where federal laws should be changed. Sessions won't be a flashy Attorney General, but he will be a consistent one. In fact, he's demonstrated that steady approach over his entire career.

Dragging nominees through the mud has become a favorite political pastime. Sessions won't likely be an exception, but the charges of racism and misogyny don't connect with my experience. Sessions's black chief counsel hired me, and his subsequent female chief counsel was my boss for as long as I worked for him. Like me, both owe a significant part of their professional success to Senator Sessions giving them a chance.

The senator will have an opportunity to answer his detractors. Hopefully his colleagues will see that the rule of law needs another champion in the form of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Cameron Smith is a regular columnist for AL.com.

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